Court’s explanatory arguments revealed

The 40-page-long document has not been published yet, but Top Channel has secured some parts of it, in which the Court argues that the charges of murder in qualifying circumstances do not stand for intentional murder, how the Prosecution formulated them.

The court’s argument doesn’t deny that Ziver Veizi, Hekuran Deda and Faik Myrtaj were killed on January 21st, but they argue that the Prosecution has no arguments for the intentional murder, since the defendants did not know the victims.

According to the Court, no other murder charge can apply, such as murder, negligent homicide, murder under strong psychological shock or killing in excess of necessary defence.

The Court was reserved and didn’t mention the charges that the Prosecution should have brought, although they admit the killing of the January 21st victims.

The Court accepts the FBI expertise, arguing that it was the basis of the trial.

The Court declared that they have taken that evidence into consideration, and that the Court has created the conviction that the bullet killing protester Faik Myrtaj has come from the weapon of the National Guard’s commander, Ndrea Prendi.

The Court says that although they admitted the killing, they don’t admit the intentional murder charge, and they cannot create a new charge.

The court argues that this is limited by two verdicts given by the highest Albanian courts, such as the Constitutional Court which in a 1999 verdict says that the Court does not formulate or modify charges, but based on facts, it can make the necessary qualifications of the act.

 In this case, the Constitutional Court interprets the law they are implementing and that is under their competency, without damaging the Prosecution’s competences.

The Court also adds another decision, that of the Supreme Court penal college in December 2011. The case in question is that of the 53 Shkrel farmers. During the trial that would decide if the plants seized by the police were illegal narcotic plants or normal hemp, the Court created a new charge in the verdict, saying that the defendants had not cooperated occasionally but as a structured criminal group, and for this reason that was not a competence of that court, but belonged to the Court of Serious Crimes.

The conflict between the Serious Crime and Criminal Courts was resolved by the Supreme Court, which declared that the Criminal Court, by formulating a new charge, has acted by taking the competences of the Prosecution.

As for the Strasbourg case, the court says that they are referring to the circumstances, when the on-duty officers were protecting the institutions and state personalities, not for how the protesters were killed.

The Court values the justification for using weapons when under pressure. However, these are only some of the arguments. The entire document will be published this Wednesday.

Top Channel